A substantial portion of the population of the world has great difficulty in walking. A huge number cannot walk at all. These groups are forced to rely on attendants or mechanical devices such as crutches or wheelchairs for their ambulation. Included are those with ambulation problems due to recent hip and knee replacement surgery.
When a person is not able to walk for a period of several weeks or months, his leg muscles tend to degenerate unless physical therapy is provided. If the leg muscles degenerate, extensive physical therapy may be required to enable him to regain his ability to walk. Many people never walk again after an extensive period of relying on a wheel chair for transportation.
The prior art includes overhead support systems. These typically include an overhead track with some type of cart riding on the track with a load (which could be a person) suspended from the cart through a suspension tether. Many such systems exist in automated factories. The limitation of all of these prior art track systems is that the attached person or object can only traverse under the overhead tracks. In other words, an overhead transporting system using tracks provides very limited movement about a space such as a single room. Track systems are very cumbersome and restricting when more than one person (or objects) are required to move about in the same space such as a single room simultaneously. Crossing of tracks is complicated, cumbersome and limiting.
Automatic tensioning assemblies are commonly found in prior art overhead transportation systems. Generally, a tensioning assembly will maintain a set load under tension based on the load cell read-out from the torque on the tensioning assembly's drive motor. Usually, a hand held remote is used to set the load, and raise and lower the object being carried by the transportation system.
What is needed is a better overhead support system that allows random directional movement.